Colorblind racial ideology as an alibi for inaction: Examining the relationship among colorblind racial ideology, awareness of White privilege, and antiracist practices among White people

This qualitative study integrates critical race theory to examine the practice of multicultural competence and the mechanism of discursive racism in the context of child welfare workers. We troubled the dominant paradigm of multicultural competence taken up by practitioners, and deployed discourse analysis on racial dialogue in a real‐life setting to highlight how the multicultural competence approach risks becoming a form of colorblind racism that diminish the importance of structure racial power which we call race dismissiveness. In our findings we identified four distinct patterns of race dismissiveness that the practitioners adopted to deflect racial dialogue: race identity fetishism, racial peripheralization, racial erasure, and racial externalization. We argue that the separation between semantic expressions of multicultural beliefs and enacted racial practices needs to be conceptualized as a part of the discursive enactment of colorblind racism that functions to keep structural racism intact through everyday practice.

Section: Current Critiques Of Multicultural Competence Counselingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Colorblindness and race dismissiveness: Discursive racism and the limits of multicultural competence

Liu,

Buckley,

Foldy

2024

“…This ignorance in turn leads people to deny that presentday examples of systemic racism are indeed examples of systemic racism (Bonam et al, 2018). Ultimately, racism denial manifests materially, for example, in the form of less antiracist social action, opposition to CRT, and depressed support for race-conscious social policies (Collins & Walsh, 2024;Richmond et al, 2024;Salter & Adams, 2016). These patterns are consistent with the core CRT concept of interest-convergence (see Bell, 2004, p. 49), which asserts that broad-based support for action advancing racial equity occurs only when White people believe it is in their own best interest-in other words, when White and POC interests converge.…”

Section: Critical Race Theory and Racism Denialmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fighting Racism Denial; Becoming a Mother‐Scholar‐Activist

Bonam

2024

Using autoethnography and a Critical Race Theory framework, I recount how I experienced racism denial in my son's school district during 2019–2020 (his kindergarten year). To build this counternarrative, I analyzed multiple data sources (e.g., field notes, personal journal entries, public documents) and, across three chapters, describe my interactions with key school district gatekeepers while advocating for racial equity‐oriented school policies. These policies included: a school desegregation program (Chapter 1), a plan to incorporate critical race education into one school's curriculum (Chapter 2), and a district‐level endorsement of critical race and ethnic studies K‐12 curriculum in California schools (Chapter 3). In responding to this advocacy, the district professed surface‐level support for racial equity, but I saw this form of support as racism denial merely masquerading as support for racial equity. I explain why I interpreted the district's responses in this way, and how I experienced these responses from my perspective as a mixed Black mother, scholar, and activist. I end by reflecting on how these experiences forced me to integrate my mother‐scholar‐activist identities in uncomfortable and productive ways, and with recommendations for how psychological researchers and K‐12 schools can support racial equity.

“…The final two papers in this section highlight White racial identification and anti-racism amongst White individuals, highlighting the role of color-evasiveness in White attitudes. Collins and Walsh (2024) use survey data from White anti-racist activists and White people from the general public to examine the relationship between antiracist praxis, attitudes about White privilege, and color-evasive racial ideologies. They examine whether White privilege attitudes mediate the relationship between antiracist praxis and color-evasive racial ideologies.…”

Section: Section Iii: Neoliberal Discourse and Attitudes About Race R...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifting systems of racial inequity: Applying critical race psychology to advance racial justice

Brenick,

Miller,

Moadel‐Attie

et al. 2024

Since the murder of George Floyd in 2020, a renewed and more mainstream attention to systemic racism emerged. Critical Race Theory (CRT) has permeated the larger public discourse around race more than ever before. Yet, social, scientific, and political backlash intended to silence conversations about the systemic and power‐driven nature of racism have also characterized these years. 30+ years have passed since CRT's introduction as a critical analysis of how the legal system fails minoritized groups; 20+ years have passed since CRT's introduction into the social psychological field. Although psychology provides a strong foundation for the CRT tenets, incorporating CRT into the field of psychology has lagged behind many other fields (e.g., sociology, education). In two installments, this special issue (re)introduces psychological researchers to CRT and Psychological Critical Race Theory (PCRT), underscores CRT's importance and limitations in the context of psychological research, features novel applications and directions in CRT, and addresses the current political climate of opposition to discussions of CRT. This second installment looks outward highlighting psychological research applying (P)CRT frameworks to advance racial justice. We conclude with reflections on the history of CRT and PCRT and the shifts necessary in our scholarship‐activism to dismantle systems of racial oppression.